Piezo
by ChaosViper
Summary: Piezo – Greek term meaning "to squeeze"," to press", or" to force". As in the method a constrictor uses to immobilize its prey.    Chapter 1 -Prologue- out for now.
1. Chapter 1

_Piezo – Greek term meaning "to squeeze"," to press", or" to force". As in the method a constrictor uses to immobilize its prey. _

_-_

I was not born so much as I was created. The wonder of conception and development not efficient enough to fashion the kind of creature I was intended to be. No magical ability or supernatural talent to speak of. A failure of both biological and supernatural proportions. The bane of my parents' existences. How could such a thing be possible? The child of an arch witch and a powerful warlock reduced to the status of a mere human? It was simply unheard of.

No one would ever know. They mustn't. How could they? My mother had gained her position in the hierarchy through sheer power and magical ability. No witch dared trifle with her lest they become mere dust beneath her feet. The clan of dark magic worshipped her talent and facility. She showed no weakness and gave no mercy. None would oppose her position other than Maba herself. She was like a goddess, immovable, unreachable, and perfect in every way. The quintessential being of magic. Her other daughters were some of the most powerful witches the world has ever known.

So I was kept hidden. Away from the eyes of the community and known only to those my mother deemed worthy of her consortion. If my existence were ever brought to the attention of our enemies, primarily those witches seeking my mother's position of authority, mutiny and defiance were certain. I would be thrown before Death and his loyalists in a moment. But that wasn't my mother's plan for me. No. I held a much darker purpose in her grasp for the future. Not my future, pray tell, but as a vehicle in her search for the ultimate means of control: knowledge.

A scientist in the most ridiculous sense of the word. A pawn of happenstance she could not understand. A being of all things supernatural attempting to understand the mechanisms of the natural world. Ludicrous. Mind boggling. Futile. Except that I was in all fairness, human, myself being governed by those same mechanisms she sought to understand and ultimately conquer. I was an empty tome in which she could write the new laws that would govern her new world, one in which all would bow to her whim. She would shake the foundations of creation and break apart the very atoms with despair and madness.

No. I was much too precious to be disposed of easily. I was not yet broken. I was not yet fashioned. I could be molded and shaped into whatever she desired most. I would take whatever form she saw fit. She hated and loved me even more than that bitch of an eldest Arachne. And I despised her for it. I hated my mother with every fiber of my being. She promised to make me a witch. Swore it, in fact. Threatened me with death and the pledge of a new existence.

"You, filthy thing, are not yet born. You are nothing but a sprite, a fetus. You are not my daughter yet, Medusa. But you will be. I say with truth and with verity that you will become a witch. Even if I have to turn you into one of _them_ in the process."

I was such an arrogant, impudent fool.

"One of what, moth-?"

"-Don't call me that, vermin!"

She never showed it, but I knew she took delight in my fear, and scoffed at my trembling. "…One of what, Lady Ceto?..."

That smile. That horrid, wretched smile. It is possible that I despised that crooked grin even more than the demon herself.

"Isn't it obvious, little monster? I speak of the kishin, of course."

_Prologue and first chapter all in one. The rest of them will be much longer, I promise. I still have yet to decide where ultimately I want to go with this, so only a taste for the moment. Just know that this is my take on the origins of Medusa, why she is the way she is, with lots of Stein thrown in the mix. Debauchery!_


	2. Chapter 2

"Remain seated in that spot. If you move so much as an inkling, it's back in the chamber."

I sat shivering and afraid on the cold stone floor of the castle basement. All around me, candles flickered on their wicks and created dancing shadows that seemed reckless and alive in fiery abandon. These lights were necessary in such a large room with absolutely no windows or natural lighting. I remember being deathly afraid of this room, but not merely for such childish reasons as a lack of illumination. No, this was where my mother did her experiments. Sitting in front of me, towering over my weak and pathetic young form like a dragon facing a tin soldier on horseback, was the apparatus that sourced the majority of my nightmares for the next several years.

I sat in silence as my mother tinkered with the machine that she had designed herself. It never had a name, but despite a lack of an identity to associate with it, I knew all too well how unique, magnificent, and absolutely horrible its capabilities were. At any moment, when all calibrations and had completed and Ceto was certain it was effective to use, I would once again be forced to succumb to its terrible and mighty power.

I didn't have to wait long. With a wipe to her sweaty brow, a roll-down of her magnificent purple skirt, and a loud "click!" of the control panel, she quickly drew her attention back to me. Grabbing my shirt collar in one hand and opening the machine's door with the other, I screamed as I was dragged across the coarse stone floor to the dark entrance that was waiting to swallow me whole. Wrapping my arms around her legs and continuing to wail, I feebly attempted to halt her efforts to force me back into that contraption. I pleaded to a better nature that didn't exist that I would be a good girl from now on. I would learn magic like the rest of the young witches. I would work so very, very hard. Please, don't make me go back in there.

A hand wrenched a fistful of my hair away from her leg, and I cried out in pain. I was no match for her strength, and eventually my gangly arms and weak thighs couldn't hold on any longer. She ripped me from her form and threw me against the wall of the machine with a loud "clang!" My head hit a protruding handle, and for a moment large stars went off behind my eyes. I could feel the blood beginning to ooze out of the open wound formed on the back of my head on impact.

"Worthless brat!" she shouted. "Ungrateful beast!"

I was then thrown into the machine's opening, the door slamming shut behind me. I only vaguely heard the sound of a deafening and resounding click as Ceto latched the door's control shut and I was locked inside.

Despite how the world was spinning and the sudden descension of my legs to jelly, I clambered to my feet and threw my small form against the door. My fists pounded meekly against cold steel and glass.

"Mommy, please, let me out! Mommy"

Not a word was detected as I both heard and felt the apparatus rumbling to life. I panicked. I began kicking at the door, pounding it with my hands until they became bruised and bloody. I was no longer able to hear my own voice over the loud roar of the machine starting up, but still I continued a fretful effort of winning my escape.

"Mommy! Mommy, I'm scared!"

_It will soon be over, Medusa_, she said soothingly to me through her magical link. The voice appeared in my head as clearly as a painted picture before my eyes, and I both heard and didn't hear that soft and gentle voice attempting to calm my frantic pleas for release. _Be a good girl and quiet down. Mommy is right here waiting for you._

Tears came to my eyes as I felt the beginnings of the madness begin to overtake my body, mind, and soul. Like an ache that slowly takes over its prone and unsuspecting victim, I felt the sensation of insanity and despair wash over me like a wave, threatening to consume me whole. This was wrong. There was nothing even remotely right about this. I moaned in agony at first, but then a soft and supple hand touched me through the magic link, placing itself on my head and shoulder, stroking my hair and back in a useless attempt to provide….what? Comfort? Respite? Explanation? Reason?

The waves continued to intensify. These ocean currents, these scratching claws, these biting fangs, these ticklish feathers, these soft kisses, these cold hands, these hot flames, these maddening sensations. The madness amplifier continued its work on my body, and I couldn't help but cry. Cry for myself, cry for my mother and my sisters. Cry for the very cells in my body being put through such torture. But soon my wails turned into a crooked sneer, and then soft and rampant giggles, and finally into full-blown cackling laughter as I lost myself to madness. All the while, my mother's attention remained at the back of my brain. I could see her smile, and I bit my tongue to keep from swallowing it.


End file.
